Wickham's charming demeanour and his story of being badly treated by Darcy attracts the sympathy of the heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, to the point that she is warned by her aunt not to fall in love and marry him.

Lacking the finances to pay for his lifestyle, he gambles regularly (not just because he is a degenerate compulsive gambler and has no sense of economy) and cons credit from tradesmen and shopkeepers and skips out on paying-up.

Jane Austen's inspiration for the plot developed around the character of George Wickham was Tom Jones, a novel by Henry Fielding, where two boys – one rich, one poor – grow up together and have a confrontational relationship when they are adults.

A minor character, barely sketched out by the narrator to encourage the reader to share Elizabeth's first impression of him, he nonetheless plays a crucial role in the unfolding of the plot, as the actantial scheme opponent, and as a foil to Darcy.

"[8] Once he appears at Meryton, Wickham is noticed, especially by the Bennet sisters: his youth, his manly beauty, his distinguished look and bearing speak immediately in favour of this handsome stranger seen in the street.

[19] The scene takes place in the street where the Bennet ladies, accompanied by the ridiculous and pompous Mr. Collins,[n 5] come to make the acquaintance of Wickham, when they are joined by Darcy and Bingley who are just crossing the city on horseback.

As some came with their spouses, teas and visits between women increased the occasions for marriageable young ladies to meet these dashing idle officers in red coats.

[22] In addition, according to the Cambridge Chronicle of 3 January 1795, the Derbyshire Militia, which Deidre Le Faye suggests inspired Jane Austen, was very well behaved in the two towns of Hertfordshire where it was stationed, as well as in church.

[26] She sympathises fully with his misfortunes, when he obligingly describes the unfair treatment to which he was subjected: Darcy had, through pure jealousy, refused to respect the will of his late father who had promised him the enjoyment of ecclesiastical property belonging to the family, forcing him to enlist in the militia to live.

[27] He lies with skill, especially by omission, taking care not to mention his own faults, and remains close enough to the truth to deceive Elizabeth: nothing he says about the behaviour of Darcy is fundamentally wrong, but it is a warped presentation, "pure verbal invention" according to Tony Tanner.

[n 10] By giving him the ability to enter religious orders and by granting him the valuable living of a curacy dependent on Pemberley (Kympton), he would have guaranteed Wickham a most honourable social position.

[32] His attempt to seduce Georgiana was facilitated by their childhood friendship (to which Darcy alluded when he described Wickham to Elizabeth) and the relative isolation of the shy adolescent (she was only fifteen years old) without a mother to chaperone her at the seaside town,[19] and by having her companion, Mrs. Young, helping him.

[22] He searched desperately for a financially advantageous marriage:[36] in Meryton, Wickham openly courted Mary King from the moment she inherited 10,000 pounds, but her uncle took her to Liverpool.

[38] Lydia, at fifteen, Georgiana's age when he tried to take her away, falls madly in love while they are in Brighton, to the point of agreeing to accompany him when he flees the regiment for not paying his debts of honour.

[n 11] She refuses to leave him, insensitive to the collateral damage the scandal will cause to her family,[39] but he only marries her in desperation, negotiating the terms with Darcy who uses his connections and his fortune to procure Wickham a position, and save Lydia's respectability, allying himself with Mr Gardiner for the occasion.

Jane blushed in confusion and Mr Bennet ironically claims to be "enormously proud" of a son-in-law so shameless and cynical: "He simpers, and smirks, and makes love to us all.

[7] Wickham's final scene in the novel is "presented as an interruption" – Woloch notes that Elizabeth tries to walk to the house quickly in order to get rid of him, and that she "hoped she had silenced him".

[40] The figure of the bad boy, who is dangerous and a bit too enticing, from whom the heroine must learn to stay away, is presented with more vivacity than the hero who is honest and a real gentleman.

[47] He has defects that are much more serious than those of the bad boys in the other novels:[48] a formidable manipulator of language,[13] he is also the only one who recklessly plays a big game,[49] the only one who slanders with such impudence;[19] and things go much worse for him than for them who, on the contrary, do not end up banished from good society.

[n 12] Miss Bingley's prejudice against Wickham, in her ignorance of the inside story, leans mainly on the fact that he is a commoner ("Considering where he comes from, you cannot expect much better"), when Elizabeth shows a greatness of spirit in refusing to tie the value of a person to his social position: "His guilt and his descent appear by your account to be the same (...) for I have heard you accuse him of nothing worse than of being the son of Mr, Darcy's steward".

[50] By using the snobbish Miss Bingley to warn Elizabeth, and the naive Jane in Darcy's defense, Austen subtly prejudices the reader's mind in favour of Wickham.

[15] The narrator uses Wickham to argue against the idea of love at first sight,[52] and Hall states that this allows Elizabeth to consider the attractive reliability of the "boy next door", Darcy.

[5] Jane Austen uses nearly the same words to describe Charles Bingley and George Wickham:[61] both are likable, charming, cheerful, have easy manners, and above all, have the air of a gentleman.

Bingley is impressionable, weak even, without much knowledge of himself,[62] but he is simple and honest, while Wickham is a hypocrite and a true villain who hides his "lack of principles" and his "vicious tendencies" under his likable airs.

[67] As to the opinion of the inhabitants of Meryton, the narrator shows with some irony that it is unreliable and unpredictable:[68] if Wickham is "universally appreciated" at the beginning, he is then considered, with the same exaggeration, as the most evil (wickedest) man in the world, and each one openly affirms that they were always highly suspicious of his apparent virtue: "had always distrusted the appearance of his goodness".

[29] Winter life in Meryton, in the midst of idle officers, generally sons of good families who relieved their boredom by breaking the hearts of romantic young girls, and incurring debts that frequent trips allowed them to avoid paying;[69] the opportunities to participate in balls, assemblies, and evening soirées organized by the "four-and-twenty families" who were relatively rich, was better suited to his libertine tastes.

The parallels between the journey of the two young men from Derbyshire and the two Bennet daughters who are both lively and cheerful, who love to laugh and find themselves attracted by Wickham end in a very moral fashion:[74] Darcy, the honest man, weds Elizabeth and takes her to Pemberley.

He is shown playing croquet with Elizabeth who speaks fondly of Jane, who has just received a letter from Caroline, expressing the hope that her brother will marry Miss Darcy.

[87] The Pride and Prejudice of 1995 further highlights the two-faced nature of the character, played by Adrian Lukis, a tall dark haired actor who was by turns smiling, insolent, or menacing.

In the modernised American web series of 2012–2013, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Wickham is the coach of a university swim team and played by Wes Aderhold.